release
by yadorigi
Summary: It's hard for Shirasagi Himawari to let go and move on with her life. Midorima Shintaro will obliviously help her. —Midorima/OC.


After Yanagi Eiko dies, the entire school is abuzz with rumors. She had killed herself four days before Christmas Eve. Some believed that the first-year had an eating disorder; others believed that her parents had abused her. No one agreed on a reason until two days before Christmas Eve, when someone brought in a local newspaper. The article was a few months old. Two people with the surname Yanagi had been killed in a car accident; their nephew had also been killed. The newspaper disappears by the end of the day.

They all pretend to have been best friends with her. Of the entire class, Midorima Shintaro notes, Shirasagi Himawari is the only one who has not said a thing, yet she's actually the one who can say anything at all. Shirasagi was Yanagi's cousin and best friend. She's the one that had placed a slip of black cloth over Shirasagi's desk every single day, the one that had placed a vase of sunflowers over the desk. The first day after her death, Midorima brought in Yanagi's lucky item—a silver butterfly hairpin—and left it on her desk. The second day, he brought in a box of glass buttons. On the third day, he brought in a dolphin toy, and on the fourth day he did not bring anything at all because it was Christmas Eve and they were all on vacation. But even two weeks later, when they have all returned from winter holiday, Shirasagi still sets a slip of black cloth over an empty seat in the back of the room and comes in every two days with fresh sujflowers. It must be expensive, Midorima thinksto himself, because it is the middle of winter.

Midorima Shintaro truthfully does not feel anything about Yanagi's death. He never knew her and does not want to dishonor her memory by pretending otherwise. But the girl, with hair and skin as white as the snow she'd probably fallen into and eyes as red as the blood that inevitably pooled around her body, cannot leave his mind.

One day, Shirasagi notices him staring at Yanagi's empty desk just before the end of the school day, as he's collecting his belongings from his cubby. The girl strides towards him, barely glancing at his tin watering pot. The corner of her mouth twitches up into a smile, but her eyes look empty. "Eiko-chan wanted to be friends with you," Shirasagi says smoothly, and his eyes fly to hers. "She always talked about you every evening, during dinnertime." It's the first time Midorima has truly looked at his classmate instead of around her; she has pin-straight chestnut hair that fell to her elbows and bronzed skin, and she has scarlet eyes just like Yanagi. Shirasagi is willowy, though she's still considerably shorter than him.

"Is that so," is all Midorima can say, because what else do you say when you're told that a girl who killed herself wanted to be friends with you?

Her smile widens, but this time it actually reaches her eyes. "Thank you for bringing the lucky items before holiday."

"You're welcome," Midorima says mildly, adjusting his glasses slightly. He still isn't entirely sure why he had brought the items; it's too late for Yanagi Eiko.

There's a long, awkward silence that ensues as the rest of the class packs away their things, or leaves. It's only broken by Aomine, who'd gone to a nearby classroom. "Hey," the blue-haired boy says, "practice is starting a little early today."

"Understood," Midorima replies, thankful for the intervention.

Shirasagi simply says, "Have fun," and she pulls her books out of her cubby.

* * *

It breaks her, to see all these fake grievers. They all talk of how beautiful she was. They claim to have been good friends with her. They talk of her as if they had known her at all. She wants to scream. None of them had cared when Yanagi Eiko was still alive, but the girl assumes it's just because no one ever cares about you until it's too late.

When they had brought in that newspaper, Shirasagi wanted to tear it to shreds. She did tear it to shreds by the end of the day. She's thankful that Midorima Shintaro does not pretend.

* * *

She's at the vending machine during lunch, inserting her coins and waiting for her can of strawberry soda. Someone is waiting behind her, a raven-haired boy that's probably an upperclassman. Shirasagi somewhat recognizes him as someone from the Basketball Club. As she grabs her can, the boy asks, "Hey, you're Shirasagi Himawari, right?"

Her smile is brittle as she answers a simple "Yes."

His expression is sympathetic and all of a sudden Shirasagi wants to tear his face up just like she had done with newspaper.

It shows on her face, but when he says, "I'm sorry for your loss," her anger turns into grief.

"Thank you." She doesn't mean it. There's a high chance that he didn't mean it either.

* * *

"She was _so_ beautiful. Remembe her poetry? They were so amazing, too, just like her," Midorima hears them say one day.

"I remember her talking about her poems!"

He hears Shirasagi mutter, "No you don't."

"Remember those silver earrings she used to wear all the time?"

"Her hair—her silver hair—it was just like silk thread, wasn't it?"

This is irrtating Shirasagi; Midorima can tell straight away.

"Her hair was white," the girl says sharply. Everyone's surprised because the entire class is used to her sweet, somewhat louder voice. Though her voice now is quiet, it cuts through the room and makes everyone stop talking immediately. "And she never wore silver jewelry, she only wore gold."

The rest of the class is stunned into silence.

After a few long seconds, someone speaks up. It's a girl with mousy brown hair; Midorima recognizes her as the girl that had to become a class representative along with him because no one else wanted to do it, and a fellow member of the student body council. "What does it matter? Those aren't big differences, maybe we just got it weong."

Shirasagi regards her coldly.

"They would be big differences to someone who _actually_ knew her."

The class does not appreciate the (truthful) implication that they never knew her.

"If you knew her so well," the girl with the mousy brown hair snapped, "then why did she throw herself off a building?"

Everyone starts asking this question.

A boy asks, "Was it because of you?" Midorima's eyes widen, and so does everyone else's.

Shirasagi doesn't answer their questions, doesn't do anything but simply stand there as if she were frozen in place for several seconds.

And then she gathers her things and walks out of the classroom. The girl only shows up a couple times a week from then on and doesn't bother to talk to anyone. Her smile is gone.

* * *

Shirasagi Himawari did know how her cousin died, but it's a very long story that began in the summer of their first year of middle school. It was blazing hot and Yanagi Eiko had come with her parents to visit her aunt, Shirasagi's mother, and her two cousins—Himawari and Jin. Jin was nine years old. One day, Yanagi's mother and father offered to drive Jin to the new arcade all across town in an attempt to bond with him. Four hours later, the car was destroyed, crushed, and the same could be said for the three people inside. Three more were left behind to wallow in their own grief.

Himawari thought of her cousin as a sister, was glad when her mother volunteered to take care of Eiko, but knew that Eiko felt the need to do whatever Shirasagi Sumire asked of her. Why Eiko always rejected allowances and fixed whatever Sumire needed fixing, why she obeyed her aunt's—and maybe even Himawari's—every word. It wasn't that Sumire treated her badly—Sumire tried her best to be kind—and Himawari was Eiko's best friend. It was just that… they were all bound together, unwillingly, by a higher power that none of them could control. It was clear through the unnatural silence of their dinners and shopping trips. Eiko thought that she owed everything to them, because her father had been driving the car that had killed Jin, because no one was able to truly forgive such a thing, because she was the one left behind by her late parents to pay a debt that was far too immense. Himawari knew that her mother did resent Eiko, a girl only related to her through her the family of her estranged ex-husband, deep down.

Now she dreamt of Eiko falling to her death. She dreamt of the mangled bodies of her aunt, uncle, little brother.

* * *

Midorima knows that her grades have probably dropped a lot, though she doesn't have to worry—it's only her first year of middle school. Everyone thinks that Shirasagi will not show up for the first day of school, or will transfer to a different school, but by this time they have all mainly forgotten and moved on from Yanagi Eiko.

They're wrong in their assumption that Shirasagi would not be here. Shirasagi misses the opening ceremony, but the girl sits in the first row of the classroom; she's also in his classroom, now, and so is Aomine. Everyone stares at her as if she should not be here. Midorima simply elects to focus on his schoolwork and sets his lucky item of the day—a Hello Kitty pencil case—on the corner of his desk.

Surprisingly, Shirasagi Himawari comes to class every single day afterwards. She still doesn't talk much.

* * *

Shirasagi joins the student body council over a month later, and they're all informed by the president that there will be a school festival in June. They have three weeks to plan. It will be sort of a… relaxant to students after their midterms, they were told. Midorima and Shirasagi are in charge of general decorations when it comes time. Thankfully, each individual class and club would be doing their own preparations.

Thankfully, Midorima muses, none of the classes have overlapped yet in when it comes to their desired event. Like last year's post-midterms school festival, Akashi would probably dominate in every board game there is. Some of his fellow classmates were even starting to place bets; many people are also interested in the 'fabulous prize' the shoji club promised, whatever that prize was. He'd heard from Izumi Yayoi that their class, class 2-B, would be having a crepe shop and Momoi would be cooking; at least Midorima now knew what classes to avoid.

And it's troublesome, very troublesome, but Midorima had agreed to help out the Astrology Research Club because of a reward.

* * *

Shirasagi would have been happy and fine with ditching class all the time, but her mother—just like any other concerned parent—forced her to go back to school, and join the student body council to boot. Coming to school every day is exhausting butthe student body council is surprisingly fun. They've only go a single day left until the festival and it's time to start putting up the decorations. While she and Midorima are working together, they have not talked much; the boy was not the talkative sort.

The girl walks down the stairs sluggishly with a box full of teru teru bozu before someone taps her on the shoulder and says, "You dropped this." Shirasagi screams and loses her footing; there was no one here and it was completely silent.

She falls down on her ass and it hurts like hell, but luckily the box is still in her arms.

"Oh," Shirasagi says, looking up at the boy as she sets the box down and gets up. It's a boy with pale blue hair that she doesn't quite recognize; he has more a few teru teru bozu in his arms that he throws into the box. "Thanks." She brushes herself off. "Um, where did you come from?"

"Eh?" the boy says. "I was just behind you the entire time."

"T-T-The entire time?" the brunette exclaims as the leans down to pick up the box. "Really?!" Was this boy a _ghost_ or something?

"Really," the boy replies. He seems to be quite used to this.

"Um, I'm Shirasagi Himawari."

"Kuroko Tetsuya," he replies. The name itself Kuroko seems vaguely familiar to her. Wasn't that… the name of some important person on the Basketball Club? "These are for the festival, right? I'm afraid I've already finished my part in the festival preparations. Is there anything else I can do, since you're in charge of decorations?"

She blinks. Most classes and clubs wouldn't finish festival preparations until the morning of, so what he's saying doesn't make sense in the slightest. Unless…

"Are you on the student body council?" Shirasagi blurts before she can help it. If he was, then how come she never noticed?!

"We sat next to each other in the last two meetings," Kuroko says as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. But it wasn't—in the last two meetings, only Midorima had sat next to her. Unless her memory was deceiving her.

The brunette feels as if she should feel slightly creeped out but he seems nice enough, and perhaps it was her own fault for not noticing him. And he reminds her of Eiko. (Though everything reminds her of Eiko; sometimes the girl sees her, even, though it's nothing more than a hallucinatiin). "Ah, okay," she says in a way that makes it seem as if she understands even though Shirasagi is actually very confused. "You can help me out and put some teru teru bozu up. Are you sure you have time to be doing extra work?"

He nods. "I have time. We're supposed to hang these up all around?"

"Right. There's more boxes back in 2-A, and we're supposed to put it up inside and outside. Or you can join some of the others and fold some origami. Or put up some signs and fliers for other clubs if you want."

"There's no more wire line," someone said. Shirasagu recognizes the voice to belong to Midorima; both she and Kuroko look up to see the bespectacled teen walking down the stairs. He's holding a bottle of cough syrup. "Some of the others are going out to buy some; you'll have to hold off until then."

"Ah, Midorima-san," Kuroko greets.

"Do you know when they'll be back?" Shirasagi inquires.

"Half an hour, most likely, unless they slack off."

"I guess we should just do some origami then," Shirasagi says, though it's mostly to herself. She sighs. "I'll go place this back in the classroom."

* * *

It's the day of the festival now. Shirasagi is just going to have fun with the festival instead of helping out any specific class or club. She was just at the curry shop that class 2-D had, with Kuroko Tetsuya as her server. Apparently Akashi Seijuro kept winning board games, infuriating anyone that challenged him. Class 2-B was having a yakisoba shop; girls flocked to class 2-B because of the fact that Kise Ryota's in that class. The brunette had gone there too, but left because she had seen Eiko with her beautiful snow white hair and blood red eyes, wearing a winter coat two times to big for her. Just like the coat she had been wearing before her death. _It's not real, she's not real_, Shirasagi told herself. _She's five feet under_. But it still bothers her. It's the reason why Shirasagi can never come up to the school rooftop anymore, because every time she does the girl sees Eiko plummeting to her death.

She's heading towards the Astrology Research Club now because people had talked about how Midorima agreed to help out, how he would be giving divinations. That would certainly be interesting. Just as Shirasagi is about to enter the completely dark classroom, a certain busty, pink-haired basketball manager stepped out of the room looking slightly miffed. When she saw Shirasagi, the basketball manager smiles, though. "Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon," Shirasagi replies as she enters the classroom.

The only light is the natural light spilling in; it's quite weird. Shirasagi looks at the students chatting quietly. "Where's Midorima-san?" the girl asks the nearest student.

"In there," he says, pointing to a small partition. Shirasagi thanks him and enters the partition, somewhat weirded-out to see him alone in there wearing a large, strange-ass coat.

Midorima blinks. He's surprieed to see her here; perhaps he thought she would ditch the festival and slack off. "Shirasagi-san?"

"Can you give me a divination?" Shirasagi asks airily.

* * *

I just poured all of my feelings into this and it became a weird, discordant mixture of angst and humor. Did you know that originally it was supposed to be Tsubaki/Midorima in Love Letters? Anyway, I'll update it… _soon_. I haven't been feeling well lately, but I got bored and wrote this last night. There will be one more chapter. I guess this story is mostly about Shirasagi coming to terms with Yanagi Eiko's suicide and Midorima helping her. If you couldn't tell, Shirasagi isn't in the most stable state of mind since she's sort of having hallucinations of Eiko.


End file.
